Scientists find genes linked to human neurological disorders in sea lamprey genome

Feb. 24, 2013 ? Scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have identified several genes linked to human neurological disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury, in the sea lamprey, a vertebrate fish whose whole-genome sequence is reported this week in the journal Nature Genetics.

"This means that we can use the sea lamprey as a powerful model to drive forward our molecular understanding of human neurodegenerative disease and neurological disorders," says Jennifer Morgan of the MBL's Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering. The ultimate goals are to determine what goes wrong with neurons after injury and during disease, and to determine how to correct these deficits in order to restore normal nervous system functions.

Unlike humans, the lamprey has an extraordinary capacity to regenerate its nervous system. If a lamprey's spinal cord is severed, it can regenerate the damaged nerve cells and be swimming again in 10-12 weeks.

Morgan and her collaborators at MBL, Ona Bloom and Joseph Buxbaum, have been studying the lamprey's recovery from spinal cord injury since 2009. The lamprey has large, identified neurons in its brain and spinal cord, making it an excellent model to study regeneration at the single cell-level. Now, the lamprey's genomic information gives them a whole new "toolkit" for understanding its regenerative mechanisms, and for comparing aspects of its physiology, such as inflammation response, to that of humans.

The lamprey genome project was accomplished by a consortium of 59 researchers led by Weiming Li of Michigan State University and Jeramiah Smith of the University of Kentucky. The MBL scientists' contribution focused on neural aspects of the genome, including one of the project's most intriguing findings.

Lampreys, in contrast to humans, don't have myelin, an insulating sheath around neurons that allows faster conduction of nerve impulses. Yet the consortium found genes expressed in the lamprey that are normally expressed in myelin. In humans, myelin-associated molecules inhibit nerves from regenerating if damaged. "A lot of the focus of the spinal cord injury field is on neutralizing those inhibitory molecules," Morgan says.

"So there is an interesting conundrum," Morgan says. "What are these myelin-associated genes doing in an animal that doesn't have myelin, and yet is good at regeneration? It opens up a new and interesting set of questions, " she says. Addressing them could bring insight to why humans lost the capacity for neural regeneration long ago, and how this might be restored.

At present, Morgan and her collaborators are focused on analyzing which genes are expressed and when, after spinal cord injury and regeneration. The whole-genome sequence gives them an invaluable reference for their work.

Morgan, Bloom, and Buxbaum collaborate at the MBL through funding by the Charles Evans Foundation. Bloom is based at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research/Hofstra North Shore-Long Island Jewish in New York. Buxbaum is from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Marine Biological Laboratory, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Jeramiah J Smith, Shigehiro Kuraku, Carson Holt, Tatjana Sauka-Spengler, Ning Jiang, Michael S Campbell, Mark D Yandell, Tereza Manousaki, Axel Meyer, Ona E Bloom, Jennifer R Morgan, Joseph D Buxbaum, Ravi Sachidanandam, Carrie Sims, Alexander S Garruss, Malcolm Cook, Robb Krumlauf, Leanne M Wiedemann, Stacia A Sower, Wayne A Decatur, Jeffrey A Hall, Chris T Amemiya, Nil R Saha, Katherine M Buckley, Jonathan P Rast, Sabyasachi Das, Masayuki Hirano, Nathanael McCurley, Peng Guo, Nicolas Rohner, Clifford J Tabin, Paul Piccinelli, Greg Elgar, Magali Ruffier, Bronwen L Aken, Stephen M J Searle, Matthieu Muffato, Miguel Pignatelli, Javier Herrero, Matthew Jones, C Titus Brown, Yu-Wen Chung-Davidson, Kaben G Nanlohy, Scot V Libants, Chu-Yin Yeh, David W McCauley, James A Langeland, Zeev Pancer, Bernd Fritzsch, Pieter J de Jong, Baoli Zhu, Lucinda L Fulton, Brenda Theising, Paul Flicek, Marianne E Bronner, Wesley C Warren, Sandra W Clifton, Richard K Wilson, Weiming Li. Sequencing of the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) genome provides insights into vertebrate evolution. Nature Genetics, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ng.2568

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/31_IzH_8VG8/130224142915.htm

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Professional Rock Climber Sierra Blair-Coyle Shares Tips For ...

Sierra Blair-Coyle didn't become a professional rock climber by sitting on the sidelines. She takes on enormous fitness challenges every day and you can too! The nineteen year-old shares her tricks for feeling less intimidated about trying a hard core workout and how you can set goals that will keep you interested and involved in whatever you choose to pursue. Make it a resolution to try something that you wouldn't normally do, like rock climbing, surfing, or a trapeze class, and keep at it until you feel comfortable. You might surprise yourself and find an entirely new fitness-related hobby! "Working out isn't easy, but trying new and exciting activities can be a lot of fun once you get into the groove of things," says Blair-Coyle.

Diving in head first can be easier than dipping one toe in at a time.
"New workouts are a scary thing," admits Blair-Coyle. "You just have to go for it! If you don't feel comfortable doing it by yourself, ask a friend to try the workout with you. Eventually, you'll become more comfortable with your new activity and it'll become routine."

Make a long term goal your motivation.
"My motivation to workout everyday comes from wanting to be the best climber I can be and wanting to live a healthy lifestyle. With these goals comes hard work, consistency, and dedication. Challenges aren't easy, but the rewards are outstanding."

Utilize Pinterest to find new workouts that challenge you.
"There are so many fitness boards on Pinterest with amazing ideas. What I really like about many of them is that they're simple, like the 5-4-3-2-1 workout. You can do them anywhere and they don't require a complex knowledge of exercise or much equipment."

Even if you find one challenging exercise you love, keep trying new things.
"When I was younger, I was into gymnastics and dance. Recently, I tried paddle boarding and it was a blast! I also love exploring the outdoors?it's fun to go on adventures!

Blair-Coyle expends tons of enegry in her high intensity workouts, so she's become a pro at fueling herself properly. Click through her two favorite protein-packed recipes and visit her food blog, ProteinPrincess.com for more!

Source: http://www.teenvogue.com/beauty/health-fitness/2013-02/sierra-blair-coyle-fitness-tips

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Mental Health Checks Cannot Sustain The Burden Of Gun Violence

Part I: Mental Health Checks Are Not The Answer To Gun Violence

Part II: Guns And Crazy Men

The Capital Times notes that Ann Althouse weighed in on the issue of gun violence and mental health checks.? Her blog ?lights up? on this issue, according to the report.? In fact Ann does have a smart and whimsical style of writing, interspersed with humor, and so one must usually read her thoughts more than one time in order to make sure that you?re not misinterpreting her prose.

But I think I?ve got what she says this time around, and I have some difficulty with her views.

Bonavia implies that we ought to make policy based on the percentages. But then she says, make a pervasive law that applies to everyone, without mentioning the very small percentage of perpetrators of gun violence within the truly vast category of Americans who buy guns. And by the way, the category ?gun violence? lumps things together. Gun control has become a hot issue because of a few massacres. If you make a category out of the set of incidents that has inflamed present-day opinion, people suffering from mental illness seem to be 100% of the perpetrators! You only get your very small percentage if you throw in other types of incidents, such as gangsters wiping each other out. Wake me up when 90% of Americans want to do something about that. And explain to me how background checks have any curative power over that problem.

The appeal to statistics and reason falls flat when you shape it to suit the policy you already want.

?Only 4 to 5 percent of violent crimes are committed by people with mental illness,? Dilip Jeste, the president of the [American Psychiatric Association], says in a statement. ?About one quarter of all Americans have a mental disorder in any given year, and only a very small percentage of them will ever commit violent crimes.?See what I mean? Questions for Dr. Jeste: 1. What percentage of school shootings are committed by persons with mental illness? 2. If we cut the category ?violent crimes? down to massacre-type shootings where the motive isn?t robbery and the victim isn?t someone with whom the shooter has a personal dispute, what percentage of those crimes are committed by persons with mental illness? 3. If we break the category ?mental disorder? into subparts, so that depression and schizophrenia aren?t lumped together, is there any category within which you cannot say that only very small percentage will ever commit violent crimes? 4. In your effort to shield the mentally ill from unnecessary stigma, are you giving cover to a set of persons who could and should be identified as dangerous?

Ann might be affirming the consequent, where given some mental malady, since some shooter (or several shooters) commit[s] a mass killing, therefore killings will be committed only by those with the identified mental malady.? But this error in propositional logic is too fundamental and I don?t think Ann is arguing in this way.

More likely, Ann is arguing (or has argued) in a probabilistic manner herself, that the preponderance of mass shootings have been committed by those with some identified mental malady.? Therefore, prohibiting people with that specific malady from owning weapons will decrease the number of mass shootings.

If I have interpreted Ann correctly, take careful note of the unstated presuppositions in her argument.? First, she is assuming that mental health professionals can correctly identify that malady, and second, she is assuming that only persons with that specific malady (or perhaps one or two others) will commit mass shootings.

Neither appears to bear the weight of scrutiny.? The mental health professionals I cite in the earlier reports on mental health checks and gun ownership state categorically that they cannot identify illness in many circumstances.? They also state rather categorically that violence of all kinds ? mass shootings or not ? are not a function of specific mental illnesses.

I usually roll my eyes at the lack of scholarship and honesty when I read Huffington Post.? But today there was refreshing honesty from yet another mental health professional concerning what his own profession cannot accomplish.

As we debate the steps to reducing gun violence in the society a couple points need to be understood: 1. The link between violent crime and mental illness is weak, and 2. Mental health professionals are poor at predicting anyone?s propensity for any specific behavior, including homicide.

Although it is mass shootings, particularly the massacre of school children in Newtown, that capture our attention and have accelerated the current discussion, Americans for the most part kill each other with guns in ones and twos. Of the total number of gun deaths in this country, around 30,000 a year, the majority are not the result of mental illness, but of ordinary human emotions like anger, hate, greed, and despair. In fact, about half of all shootings are suicides.

[ ... ]

The only real predictor of future violence in anyone turns out to be a past history of violent behavior. Absent this, professionals are little better than the average citizen at identifying those likely to harm others. Many people report violent fantasies (remember your reaction to the last person to cut you off in traffic); few act on them.

[ ... ]

As we confront the reality of these systemic deficits, however, we ought not to do so under the illusion that we are responding to the problem of gun violence. These are separate and largely unrelated issues, both of which deserve our immediate attention and informed response.

It is true that mental health checks can be abused and thus rights denied for incorrect reasons, and it is true that mental health professionals often disagree, and it is true that given a reason to deny rights, a totalitarian state will usually find a way to use it for totalitarian purposes.? All of these things concern me and in fact militate against such checks being a necessary prerequisite for gun ownership, in my opinion (See earlier discussions of the checks we must go through in my own county to obtain a concealed handgun permit, which I do have, and also the ?fitness for duty? program and managerial observation we must go through having unescorted access to nuclear power plants ? both checks being pretty much worthless in my view, and yet subject to unconstitutional denial of rights).

But the objection raised by the mental health professionals goes beyond my own objections.? In every case, they are saying that there is no identity between those who commit violent crime and any specific mental malady, and beyond that, they are little better than the average person at identifying propensity to violence anyway.

Laws only imperfectly supply incentive for certain behavior and disincentive for the opposite.? But what laws cannot do is ensure that certain behavior does not obtain.? That is a burden too far for legislation and ethics.? These issues ensconce squarely in the domain of morality, and laws do not change that.? Evil cannot be legislated (or medicated) away, and the best amelioration of risk associated with gun violence is to be prepared for self defense (including elimination of gun free zones).

Similarly, mental health professionals have weighed in telling us that their profession cannot possibly hope to shoulder the burden we wish to place on it.? It?s more than simply it is subject to abuse, which it is, or that the doctor-patient relationship is invaded, which it is.? It is that the ?science? ? if it can be called that at all, is simply incapable of sustaining the burden of gun violence, or any other form of violence, for that matter.? They cannot prevent it, regardless how much we may wish them to.

Source: http://www.captainsjournal.com/2013/02/11/mental-health-checks-cannot-sustain-the-burden-of-gun-violence/

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From Chief Meteorologist Bill Kelly **You can follow Bill on Facebook at: http...

Good Monday evening everyone!! :) Hope you all had a good weekend. LOTS on the weather menu tonight... hope you can join us on FOX28 News at 10 or ABC6 News a...t 11. Chilly temps, Possible Snow storm.. AND Pay your heating bill contest continues on ABC6 News at 11pm. It's a new week. Don't miss it. (Btw... map is of current windchills) - BKSee More

Source: http://www.facebook.com/WSYXABC6/posts/391716400924742

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Video: Police post video of Mardi Gras shooting

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/50760492/

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Why baby boomers are less healthy than their parents

Results of a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) highlights poor health suffered by baby boomers. The finding suggests the health of millions is worse than past generations of the same age. The research has implications for the future of health care policies.

In the report, one of the reasons cited is lower activity levels. many boomers are obese, leading to health problems.

In 2010, statistics showed baby boomers make up 26.8 percent of the population. We?re living longer, but not necessarily healthier, suggested by the study that revealed more than half of those studied fail to get any regular exercise.

Other findings uncovered high blood pressure that is more common among baby boomers, compared to previous generations. High cholesterol is also more rampant. More boomers take medications for diabetes and hypertension than prior generations.

Silver linings? gleaned from the study include lower smoking rates, fewer heart attacks and less incidence of emphysema.

More baby boomers have diabetes than their parents and grandparents. The study found insignificant, but slightly higher rates of cancer.

Moderate alcohol consumption, compared to past generations, was found to be more prevalent. Drinking alcohol in moderation is suggested to be healthy, but combined with inactivity, poor dietary habits and obesity negates any potential benefits.

Baby boomers are less healthy than previous generations because they?re not practicing healthy lifestyles, suggested by the finding that negates past findings suggesting boomers might be healthier than their parents at the same age.

The finding has implications for future policies and for the health workforce who could face the burden of caring or millions of baby boomers who are living longer, but wracked with health issues.

The finding that compared the health status of baby boomers to their parents from 1988 to 1994, and again 2007 to 2010 10 ties in with concerns that Alzheimer?s disease, type 2 diabetes and disability rates are expected to soar, placing a burden on the health care system and workforce.

In the report, just 13 percent of baby boomers described their health as ?excellent?, compared to 32 percent of their parents. Obesity rates were 10 percent higher for boomers than parents.

Dr. Dana King, a professor of family medicine at West Virginia University School of Medicine said in a press release baby boomers may be relying too much on medications to treat their ills. Lack of exercise, combined with reliance on pharmaceuticals may be the biggest reasons boomers health is worse than their parents by the time they reach mid-life.

A finding not addressed in the current study was limited access to health care for mental health issues and substance abuse for older people.

The study, published July, 2011, highlighted yet another problem faced by baby boomers from lack of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for mental health services for millions with limited income from disability and social security wages.

It's never too late to turn your health around

The good news is that it?s never too late to turn things around. Perhaps baby boomers could consider the finding a challenge to take charge of their health and well-being. Schedule you preventive screenings that are no cost, take advantage of that free gym membership offered by a variety of Medicare Advantage plans.

Check with your insurance to know what value added services are included in your plan. It's important to know that Medicare offers a free annual physical exam. If you're concerned about doctor co-payments, speak directly with your physician for a payment option plan.

There?s an exercise for everyone, even those with chronic pain. Exercise can improve every aspect of poor health and can be done in 5 to 10 minute increments throughout the day.

Weight loss programs are readily available through Weight Watchers, online or by seeing a nutritionist for counseling. Hospitals and pharmacies also offer free classes. Many insurance companies include weight loss coaches free of charge and nurse case managers who can provide guidance and support to help you meet your health goals.

Obesity takes a toll on every system in the body, but just losing 5 percent of body weight can make a huge difference in ameliorating risk factors and chronic pain related to high body mass index.

It's possible that baby boomers health is worse than their parents from challenges that didn't affect past generations.

We?re living longer, but if the trend continues, quality of life is destined for the pits for people in their 50?s and 60?s who are part of the baby boomer generation. The study challenges the notion that boomers are healthier than their parents ? but the good news is there is much that can be done to reverse poor health status.

Resource:
JAMA
Feb 4, 2013

Image credit: Morguefile

Source: http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/why-baby-boomers-are-less-healthy-their-parents

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Better Internet site Search positions By way of Search Engine ...

Home
? Cyberprzestrze?, Internet ? Better Internet site Search positions By way of Search Engine Optimization

There are professional professionals which make their livings aiding site owners with search engine optimisation. Can this suggest you can?t learn a few tips to assist you to do your own Search engine optimisation? Absolutely not! A bit energy committed to optimizing your website?s online search engine overall performance can pay off of big with increased rankings and a boost in traffic. Keep reading for tips to optimize your quest engine functionality. Making use of Google?s Adwords Search term Device is excellent to see the number of lookups are now being executed on the expression or term, additionally it carries a pozycjonowanie sosnowiec quote recommendation which is stuffed with information and facts. The better the quote, the greater number of worthwhile the website traffic, plus the more inclined other bids are actually capitalizing on these words. Feature an XML sitemap on your site to assist search engine listings get all the parts of your website. Yahoo delivers a totally free sitemap creation instrument, which will produce a sitemap in ways that Google has an effortless time reading through. Don?t forget to improve your sitemap often as it would transform while you put and take away internet pages. Should you be uncertain regarding what to kind in a lookup club on the search engines to recover the final results that you are looking for, it really is of great importance and help to question a friend, colleague, or professor to assist you. Using this method you will not battle searching for the info that you desire on the web. You should make sure that the major search engines search engine optimization you select, utilizes a high quality and proven technique. Filling keywords aimlessly through your web site won?t a single thing but lower your audience?s assurance within your legitimacy. Consider customized-created content that is certainly distinct to the organization. This may attract the crowd and encourage them to discover your entire website. Know your competitors. Every business has its own rivalry, and the best way to keep before them is with knowledge. Take a look at their sites, and see how your own actions up. It is also beneficial to do search term search queries for the services or products you offer. When your levels of competition are displaying greater on the google search results site, you may make a plan to understand why. Always keep these Search engine marketing ideas in mind if you build web pages for your website. There may be nothing wrong with doing everything you can to have your internet site in front of more visitors, plus some effective search engine marketing can attain that target in a big way. And there are always refreshing suggestions to learn within the SEO approach.

Source: http://blogginginthenameof.com/2013/02/09/better-internet-site-search-positions-by-way-of-search-engine-optimization/

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Stung By Media's Focus on Liberal Agenda, Obama Pivots Back to Economy

Job One for President Obama in his State of the Union address will be to convince Americans that his top priority is their jobs.

White House officials tell me they feel stung by coverage of the inaugural address. Reporters highlighted the president?s left-leaning stances on immigration, gun control, climate change and gay and women?s rights. Obama?s aides argue that he devoted more inaugural address language to the economy, jobs and the deficit than all other issues combined.

Still, the perception remains that Obama lost focus on the economy -- the top issue in the minds of most voters.

So look for an address Tuesday tilted heavily toward policies pledging action on joblessness, growing the economy and expanding the middle class, White House officials said Friday. The other issues will be discussed, aides said, but there will be no mistaking that Obama?s paramount concern is the economy. The Washington Post and The New York Times reported Sunday that Obama would propose ways to make college more affordable and urge Congress to spend federal money on research and roads. The Post said Obama will argue that such steps are needed "to prepare Americans for a? world where a warming climate, a nomadic labor force and new technology are shutting doors and opening new ones across the national economy."

Though Obama's team would dismiss its significance, Democratic allies took notice of Quinnipiac University's new poll that showed Obama's approval rating dropping since his election, from a 53 percent approval rating in December to 46 percent.

One senior Democratic consultant with ties to both the White House and Capitol Hill said he's not surprised by the slip in polls for two reasons. First, independent voters might want Obama talking more about their jobs and the economy. Second, liberal Democrats are unhappy with reports about Obama's aggressive drone warfare.

"He needs to get back to jobs, jobs and middle-class jobs," the Democrat said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution from the White House.

Regardless of his approval ratings, there are limits to Obama's political capital, as Michael Hirsh explained in this week's National Journal magazine. I have been questioning the limits of a presidential mandate since Election Day. But the White House is confident that Obama has the upper hand against a GOP that is significantly less popular than the Democratic Party, according to polls.

The key, Obama's aides say, will be making jobs Job One.

UPDATED with Post and Times stories.

?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stung-medias-focus-liberal-agenda-obama-pivots-back-161001577--politics.html

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HP sets labor guidelines in for Chinese suppliers

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's largest personal computer maker, is vowing to crack down on its Chinese suppliers in an effort to reduce the use of low-paid student interns and other temporary workers.

The guidelines unveiled Friday are the latest attempt by a major U.S. technology company to weed out labor abuses at Chinese factories that manufacture the gadgets for an Internet-connected world.

HP, which is based in Palo Alto, California, said its new standards are meant to ensure that its Chinese suppliers don't lean too heavily on student interns and temporary workers as a way to save money. The company says it wants to protect workers' rights when they are hired.

The new standards come a few months after Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., a major China manufacturer better known as Foxconn, acknowledged it has hired interns as young as 14.

Both HP and Apple Inc., the maker of iPhones, iPads and Mac computers, rely on Foxconn to make some of their products.

Apple, which is based in Cupertino, California, also has been trying to reform the labor practices at Foxconn and other Chinese suppliers in recent years in response to scathing criticism about the inhumane treatment of the workers making devices that have become status symbols as well as multi-purpose tools for communicating, reading, watching video and taking pictures.

Among other things, HP said it hopes its rules will prod its Chinese suppliers to employ mostly full-time workers instead of exploiting interns and temporary employees. When interns and temps are used, HP said it will insist they aren't forced to remain on the job against their will and have the right to file grievances. The company also pledged to ensure intern hours are kept well below the legal limit.

To show it is serious, HP intends to review the labor practices at its Chinese suppliers more frequently.

HP is a Silicon Valley pioneer whose late founders, William Hewlett and David Packard, become renowned for their egalitarian policies and generous benefits. The worker-friendly culture that they fostered become known as "The HP Way" ? a template that has steered the views of many other Silicon Valley companies, including Apple, whose late founder, Steve Jobs, once briefly worked at HP.

In recent years, though, HP has alienated some of its 332,000 employees with mass layoffs and other cost-cutting measures aimed at boosting its profits. The company eliminated nearly 18,000 jobs during its past fiscal year.

HP's stock gained 41 cents, or 2. 5 percent, to $16.85 in afternoon trading Friday. They have traded in a 52-week range of $11.35 to $30.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-02-08-HP-China%20Suppliers/id-3e3d232ff52f44d5b210f0c471f5150d

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Early Adopter: How to Build a Periscope

February 8, 2013 1:00 PM Text Size: A . A . A DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: 1/10
AGES: 4+
BUILD TIME: 2 Hours
PARTS COST: About $20

MATERIALS

? Two pieces 3 x 15-inch foam board
? Two pieces 3.5 x 18-inch foam board
? Two pieces 3 x 3-inch foam board
? Two 3 x 3-inch mirrors
? Duct tape

Assemble this eye-spy device with your kids, and in a short time, your little ones will be peeking over your neighbors' fences and around bedroom corners. Hey, no one said espionage was ethical.

HOW IT WORKS

To understand the optics of periscopes, think of the letter Z. The light reflected from an object hits a mirror tilted at45 degrees at the top of the device. The light then bounces to an identically angled mirror at the bottom, providing the image we see when we look into a periscope. If you follow the path of light, it's approximately Z-shaped.

HOW TO MAKE IT

1. Cut foam board to size.
2. Assemble a four-sided chamber by alternating the placement of the 3 x 15-inch and 3.5 x 18-inch pieces and securing them with tape; there should be 3-inch-square openings at the top front and lower back of the chamber.
3. Cap both ends by taping 3 x 3-inch foam-board pieces into place.
4. Fold two 3-inch-long strips of tape at a right angle, and stick them to two opposite edges of each mirror.
5. Fasten the mirrors inside the chamber. To get the 45-degree angle, position the mirrors so that their front edges align with those of the top and bottom openings; when viewed head-on, the mirrors should fill the 3-inch openings.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/toys/early-adopter-how-to-build-a-periscope-15075808?src=rss

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Immune systems of healthy adults 'remember' germs to which they've never been exposed

Feb. 7, 2013 ? It's established dogma that the immune system develops a "memory" of a microbial pathogen, with a correspondingly enhanced readiness to combat that microbe, only upon exposure to it -- or to its components though a vaccine. But a discovery by Stanford University School of Medicine researchers casts doubt on that dogma.

In a path-breaking study published online Feb. 7 in Immunity, the investigators found that over the course of our lives, CD4 cells -- key players circulating in blood and lymph whose ability to kick-start the immune response to viral, bacterial, protozoan and fungal pathogens can spell the difference between life and death -- somehow acquire memory of microbes that have never entered our bodies.

Several implications flow from this discovery, said the study's senior author, Mark Davis, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology and director of Stanford's Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection. In the study, newborns' blood showed no signs of this enhanced memory, which could explain why young children are so much more vulnerable to infectious diseases than adults. Moreover, the findings suggest a possible reason why vaccination against a single pathogen, measles, appears to have reduced overall mortality among African children more than can be attributed to the drop in measles deaths alone. And researchers may have to rethink the relevance of experiments conducted in squeaky-clean facilities on mice that have never been exposed to a single germ in their lives.

"It may even provide an evolutionary clue about why kids eat dirt," said Davis. "The pre-existing immune memory of dangerous pathogens our immune systems have never seen before might stem from our constant exposure to ubiquitous, mostly harmless micro-organisms in soil and food and on our skin, our doorknobs, our telephones and our iPod earbuds."

CD4 cells are members of the immune club known as T cells. CD4 cells hang out in our circulatory system, on the lookout for micro-organisms that have found their way into the blood or lymph tissue.

In order to be able to recognize and then coordinate a response to a particular pathogen without inciting a Midas-touch overreaction to anything a CD4 cell bumps into (including our own tissues), our bodies have to host immensely diverse inventories of CD4 cells, each with its own narrow capacity to recognize one single pathogenic "body part" or, to be more scientific, epitope -- and, it's been believed, only that epitope. Contact with that epitope can cause a CD4 to whirr into action, replicating rapidly and performing the immunological equivalent of posting bulletins, passing out bullets and bellowing attack orders through a bullhorn to other immune cells. This hyperactivity is vital to the immune response. (It is CD4 cells that are targeted and ultimately destroyed by HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.)

In the early 1980s, Davis, now the Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor of Immunology at Stanford, unraveled the mystery of how organisms such as ourselves, equipped with only 20,000 or so genes, can possibly generate the billions of differing epitope-targeting capabilities represented in aggregate by T cells. He found that highly reshufflable "hot spots" in a rapidly dividing T cell's DNA trigger massive mix-and-match madness among these genetic components during cell division, so each resulting T cell sports its own unique variant of a crucial surface receptor and, therefore, is geared to recognizing a different epitope.

That variation accounts for our ability to mount an immune response to all kinds of microbial invaders, whether familiar or previously unseen. But it doesn't account for the phenomenon of immune memory. CD4 cells, like other T cells, can be divided into two groups: so-called "na?ve" CD4s randomly targeting epitopes belonging to pathogens they haven't encountered yet; and CD4s that, having had an earlier run-in with one or another bug, have never forgotten it. These latter CD4 cells are exceptionally long-lived and ultra-responsive to any new encounter with the same pathogen.

"When a na?ve CD4 cell comes across its target pathogen, it takes days or even weeks before the immune system is full mobilized against that pathogen. But an activated-memory CD4 cell can cause the immune system to mount a full-blown response within hours," said William Petri, MD, PhD, chief of infectious diseases and international health at the University of Virginia.

That's why Petri, who was not involved in the study, thinks the newfound abundance in healthy adults, and total absence in newborns, of memory CD4 cells targeting microbes those individuals have never encountered before is so important. For the past 20 years, he has led a team conducting medical interventions in an urban slum in Dacca, the capital of Bangladesh. There, the average infant experiences a half-dozen diarrhea-inducing infections and as many upper-respiratory-tract infections within the first year of life, many of them within the first few months. The consequence, Petri said, is rampant malnutrition, with corresponding cognitive deficits and high mortality -- this, despite the fact that Petri's group provides free health-care and education services and visits homes twice a week.

"If I had lived in such a slum as a kid, I probably would have died of infection," Petri said.

A sophisticated technique invented by Davis in 1996 and since refined in his and others' laboratories permitted the Stanford team to identify a single CD4 cell targeting a particular epitope out of millions. Using this method, his team exposed immune-cell-rich blood drawn from 26 healthy adults, as well as from two newborns' umbilical cords, to various epitopes from different viral strains. They were able to fish out, from among hundreds of millions of CD4 cells per sample, those responsive to each viral epitope.

Nearly all of the 26 adult blood samples contained cells responsive to HIV; to HSV, the virus that causes herpes; and to cytomegalovirus, a common infectious agent that often produces no symptoms but can be dangerous to immune-compromised people. This wasn't surprising, given humans' exhaustive inventories of divergent CD4-cell affinities.

What was surprising was that, on average, about half of the virus-responsive CD4 cells in each adult sample bore unmistakable signs of being in the "memory" state: a characteristic cell-surface marker, gene activation patterns typical of memory T cells, and rapid secretion of signature biochemical signals, called cytokines, that communicate with other immune cells -- even though highly sensitive clinical tests showed that these individuals had never been exposed to any of these viruses in real life.

The newborns' blood contained similar frequencies of CD4 cells responsive to the same three viruses. However, all these cells were in the "na?ve" rather than memory state. "This could explain, at least in part, why infants are so incredibly susceptible to disease," said the study's first author, Laura Su, MD, PhD, an instructor in immunology and rheumatology.

Another surprise: About one-fifth of the adult samples boasted "cross-reactive" memory CD4 cells responsive to other harmless environmental microbes. For example, CD4 cells selected specifically for their reactivity to HIV turned out to be able to recognize a large number of common environmental microbes, including three gut-colonizing bacteria, a soil-dwelling bacterial species and a species of ocean algae. Considering that the investigators tested only a negligible fraction of all the microbes a person might encounter, it's a sure bet that this measure of CD4-cell cross-reactivity was an underestimate.

Next, the researchers recruited two adults who hadn't been vaccinated for flu in five years or longer, and then vaccinated them. In these volunteers, memory CD4s proliferated and otherwise became activated in response to exposure to certain components of the influenza virus, but also to epitopes of several different bacterial and protozoan microbes.

This cross-reactivity could explain why exposure to common bugs in the dirt and in our homes renders us less susceptible to dangerous infectious agents.

Which raises another point. "We grow and use experimental lab mice in totally artificial, ultra-clean environments," Davis said. "That's nothing like the environment that we live in. The CD4 cells from adult mice in the lab environment are almost entirely in the na?ve state. They may be more representative of newborns than of adults."

Petri described the new study as paradigm-shifting. "It was one of those rare, seminal findings that changes the way I think about the immune response," he said.

Davis' study offers hope that some of the immunity conferred by a vaccine extends beyond the specific microbe it targets, Petri said. "This adds support to the impetus to vaccinate infants in the developing world," he said. As many as 30 different pathogens can cause diarrhea, so vaccinating small children against all of them -- even if those vaccines existed -- would require so many separate injections as to be logistically hopeless. Understanding the mechanism by which cross-reactivity occurs might further allow immunologists to develop "wide-spectrum vaccines" that cover a number of infectious organisms.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University Medical Center. The original article was written by Bruce Goldman.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Laura?F. Su, Brian?A. Kidd, Arnold Han, Jonathan?J. Kotzin, Mark?M. Davis. Virus-Specific CD4 Memory-Phenotype T Cells Are Abundant in Unexposed Adults. Immunity, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2012.10.021

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/cUUdfOFGgpM/130207131602.htm

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Lawmakers test legal waters for regulating drones

FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2013 file photo, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., right, welcomes CIA Director nominee John Brennan on Capitol Hill in Washington, prior to the start of Brennan's confirmation hearing before the committee. Lawmakers are considering whether Congress can set up a court to decide when drones can kill U.S. citizens overseas, much like the secret courts that now grant permission for surveillance. It's another sign of the U.S. philosophical struggle over remote warfare, raised after CIA head nominee John Brennan's vigorous defense of the drones. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2013 file photo, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., right, welcomes CIA Director nominee John Brennan on Capitol Hill in Washington, prior to the start of Brennan's confirmation hearing before the committee. Lawmakers are considering whether Congress can set up a court to decide when drones can kill U.S. citizens overseas, much like the secret courts that now grant permission for surveillance. It's another sign of the U.S. philosophical struggle over remote warfare, raised after CIA head nominee John Brennan's vigorous defense of the drones. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Lawmakers are considering whether Congress should set up a special court to decide when drones can kill American al-Qaida suspects overseas ? much like the secret courts that now grant permission for surveillance. It's another sign of the U.S. philosophical struggle over remote warfare, raised after CIA Director-designate John Brennan's vigorous defense of the drones at his confirmation hearing this week.

The idea is so preliminary that lawmakers who were interviewed could not yet say exactly how the process would work. In fact, most said the current process run by the White House, with targeted individuals approved by the president, works well.

The new idea is drawing criticism from human rights and legal groups that contend such a court must allow someone to defend himself before being targeted.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-08-Drones-Politics/id-b2be686af1124a63a56be0009317be71

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Editor's Letter: When the rubber hits the road

In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.

The time for talk and for analysis has come to a close. The BlackBerry company's first phone hit the market in earnest and now we wait and see how the market reacts. According to BlackBerry itself, initial indications are just fine. While the company followed in the footsteps of Amazon and Microsoft and refused to give solid numbers (probably wisely), it did say that sales for the Canadian release were 50 percent stronger than any of the company's previous launches there. In the UK things looked even better, with sales 300 percent greater than any previous BlackBerry release.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/4C55ZwZJnmg/

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Japan says 2 Russian fighters entered its airspace

TOKYO (AP) ? Japan's Defense Ministry said two Russian fighter jets briefly intruded Thursday into Japanese airspace as the country was holding rallies demanding that Moscow return a group of disputed islands.

Japan's Foreign Ministry lodged a protest with the Russian Embassy in Tokyo. Russia, however, denied any border violation.

The incident occurred as Japan was observing "Northern Territories Day," when it holds annual rallies urging Moscow to return the islands, seized by the Soviet Union in the final days of World War II.

Defense Ministry official Yoshihide Yoshida said Japanese air force jets scrambled after an intrusion by two Su-27 jets which lasted just over a minute.

Yoshida said it was not immediately known whether the incident was intentional or accidental, but that it was "extremely problematic." The last intrusion by Russian jets in Japanese airspace was on Feb. 9, 2008, he said.

In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement denying any intrusion. It said Russian military aircraft taking part in a military exercise in the area flew in "strict conformity with international rules without any border violations."

It was not immediately clear whether the incident off the northwestern tip of Japan's Hokkaido island was related to Northern Territories Day.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a government-sponsored rally in Tokyo that he will do his utmost to resolve the territorial dispute, which has kept the two nations from signing a peace treaty officially ending their hostilities in World War II.

Soviet troops captured the islands off Hokkaido's eastern coast in the waning days of the war, forcing about 17,000 Japanese residents to be deported over the next few years. About 17,000 people, mostly Russians, live there now.

Japan says a treaty dating back to Feb. 7, 1855, supports its claim to the islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia.

They lie as close as 10 kilometers (six miles) to Hokkaido and are also near undisputed Russian territory. The islands are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and are believed to have offshore oil and natural gas reserves, plus gold and silver deposits.

Addressing former Japanese residents of the islands and others gathered in a large Tokyo concert hall, Abe said he told Russian President Vladimir Putin in December that he wants to settle the dispute. Abe plans to send former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori as a special envoy to Russia this month, but prospects for progress on the issue are uncertain.

"We aim to finally resolve the problem with Russia on the disputed islands and realize the signing of a peace treaty," Abe said in a brief speech before being whisked back to parliamentary proceedings.

In 2010, former President Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian or Soviet leader to visit the islands, triggering sharp rebukes from Tokyo. He visited a second time last July.

More than half of the former Japanese residents of the islands have died in the 68 years since the Russians took control.

"My birthplace is right in front of me, but I can't return" to live there, said Choriki Sugawara, a 79-year-old man who recalled happy memories growing up on the island of Kunashir ? called Kunashiri in Japan ? in a fishing family of eight.

___

Associated Press writer Malcolm Foster contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japan-says-2-russian-fighters-entered-airspace-141944662.html

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MPM Birthday Celebration Giveaway Event ? Win An iPad 2 : Mom ...

We have an iPad 2. I absolutely love it. So does my youngest son, who frequently tries to disappear with it when he thinks I?m not looking. If you?d like to have an iPad 2, you?re in the right place. The winner of this giveaway event will receive an iPad 2. Here?s the details and the entry form. The giveaway ends on 03/04.

It?s a MPM Birthday Celebration Event

We are so excited to give you a chance to win an iPad 2!

iPad 2 Specs:

Wifi
Color: Black
Apple iOS 4, Apple A5 1 GHz.
It has 16 GB integrated.
9.7? IPS TFT , LED backlight and Multi-Touch.
802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR , 21.2 oz.
Camera: Front: 0.7 MP, Back: 0.7 MP

One winner will receive iPad 2 {Wifi, 16GB, Black}!

Giveaway ends March 4th at 11:59pm, open to US and Canadian residents, ages 18+. To enter please use the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck!

Special thank you to our co-hosts: Bay Area Mommy, My Vegan Gluten-Free Life, Franticmommy, Mommy Bear Media, Swank Savings, Misadventures with Andi, Boys Oh Boys, Capri?s Coupons, Mom to Bed by 8, Powered By Mom, Real Mom Reviews and Baby Costcutters.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received no compensation for this publication. My opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own. Mom Knows It All is not responsible for sponsor prize shipment. Please contact teri@mompoweredmedia.com with questions or to see your business or blog featured on the next big event!

Tags: giveaway event

Category: Current Giveaways, Giveaways

Source: http://www.valmg.com/index.php/2013/mpm-birthday-celebration-giveaway-event-win-an-ipad-2/

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New 'retention model' explains enigmatic ribbon at edge of solar system

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Since its October 2008 launch, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has provided images of the invisible interactions between our home in the galaxy and interstellar space. Particles emanating from this boundary produce a striking, narrow ribbon, which had yet to be explained despite more than a dozen possible theories. In a new "retention model," researchers from the University of New Hampshire and Southwest Research Institute suggest that charged particles trapped in this region create the ribbon as they escape as neutral atoms.

The Sun continually sends out a solar wind of charged particles or ions traveling in all directions at supersonic speeds. IBEX cameras measure energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) that form when charged particles become neutralized.

As solar wind ENAs leave the solar system, the majority move out in various directions, never to re-enter. However, some ENAs leave the solar system and impact other neutral atoms, becoming charges particles again. These newly formed pickup ions begin to gyrate around the local interstellar magnetic field just outside the solar system. In the regions where the magnetic field is perpendicular to their initial motion, they scatter rapidly and pile up. From those regions, some of those particles return to the solar system as secondary ENAs ? ENAs that leave the solar system and become charged and then re-neutralized, only to travel back into the solar system as ENAs a second time.

"The syrup you pour on a pancake piles up before slowly oozing out to the sides," says Dr. David McComas, IBEX principal investigator and assistant vice president of the SwRI Space Science and Engineering Division. "The secondary ENAs coming into the solar system after having been temporarily trapped in a region just outside the solar system do the same thing. As they pile up and get trapped or retained, they produce higher fluxes of ENAs from this region and form the bright ribbon seen by IBEX."

ENA energies observed in the ribbon correlate to the speed of the solar wind, which is slower (around 1 million miles per hour) at low latitudes and faster (up to 2 million miles per hour) at high latitudes.

"This was the clue that made us think the ribbon was caused by a secondary ENA source, because it so directly reflects the latitudinal structure of the solar wind," says McComas.

Simulations using a realistic solar wind structure showed remarkably good association with the IBEX data, closely reproducing the observed ribbon structure, location, and latitudinal ordering by energy. Thus far, the retention model appears best able to reproduce the IBEX observations. However, more studies are needed to confirm if variations in the solar wind affect the ribbon, as theorized.

Using information provided by this new model, future studies of the ribbon could help determine the properties of the nearby galactic magnetic field, opening a window into the physics of the nearby galactic medium. In addition, the IBEX ribbon could provide researchers with a means for measuring the strength of the interstellar magnetic field, as well as its direction.

###

"Spatial Retention of Ions Producing the IBEX Ribbon," by N.A. Schwadron and D.J. McComas was published Feb. 4 in the Astrophysical Journal

Southwest Research Institute: http://www.swri.org

Thanks to Southwest Research Institute for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 25 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126646/New__retention_model__explains_enigmatic_ribbon_at_edge_of_solar_system

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Which Social Network Is Right For Your Business? - Small Business ...

If your business has yet to tap into social media to accomplish essentials such as supporting customer service, promoting your products and/or services, engaging your community and ultimately building your brand, your missing out on a lot of potential. While most of the big brands, with their extensive resources, have already established social media presences on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the like, small business owners may find it difficult to devote the necessary time to create and manage content on this new medium.

With the help of a strategic plan and good marketing sense, any business can successfully set up and manage a social media presence. The key for those with little time to devote to social media is to discover which sites are most beneficial in relation to ones customer base and business model. The following infographic from Purolator is designed to help you decide which social networks are right for you.

[Click here for full size version]

About David Wallace

David Wallace, co-founder and CEO of SearchRank, is a recognized expert in the industry of search and social media marketing. Since 1997, David has been involved in developing successful search engine and social media marketing campaigns for large and small businesses. In additions to his duties at SearchRank, David is editor in chief at Infographic Journal, a blog featuring some today's best infographics and data visualizations.

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Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/02/social-network-for-business-infographic.html

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The #Bachelor Sean Lowe Recap ? February 4, 2013 - Tv Food and ...

This week we?re off to Montana, where Bachelor Sean and his eleven remaining lovelies are holed up in a wilderness lodge. Are you a big fan of the outdoors? Because I?m not. Michael has been trying to get me to go camping for almost eight years and the closest we?ve gotten is when I agreed we could go outside the Starbucks and drink our mochas on the street. Before you judge me too harshly, I will add that I was wearing sneakers at the time and there were several mosquitoes lingering about. There was also a guy peeing on the hood of a car nearby. Bears do that, don?t they? It?s basically the same thing.

Despite the new locale, it was a pretty standard week on the old Bachelor, with the only interesting behavior chalked up again to Tierra, who I?ve noticed has been singled out about a million times on the web for having a dent in her forehead. I?m just wondering? has no one noticed there?s a girl with only one arm this season?

The best thing tonight had going for it was that it was time for this season?s two-on-one date! That means Sean?s gotta go out with two girls at one time, and then kick one to the curb right in front of the other one! Well, okay it doesn?t always go down exactly like that. Usually the Bachelor takes the loser out behind a large rock or a dumpster before flicking away her last shred of dignity and making her eat her own falsies. Sometimes, if the three of them are on a yacht, he makes the loser climb onto a dingy and row herself back to shore. And one time, he pressed a button and she flew out of the top of the car just like in Goldfinger! Okay, okay, that one didn?t actually happen, but when a show?s been on as long as The Bachelor, you never know what lines they might eventually decide to cross.

Date Number One goes to Lindsay the Substitute Teacher. Sean takes her outside and shows her a helicopter, and Lindsay squeals, ?Is that a helicopter?? which helps clear up why a permanent teaching position has thus far eluded her.

Glacier National Park is our destination, but we actually saw very little of it. Was it just me, or was there no real date? I leaned over to stick my fork into a Brussels sprout and when I looked back Sean and Lindsay were already parked on a blanket making goo-goo eyes and drinking Zimas. Does Lindsay just not give good tv? Was Sean pouting because he didn?t get to start this episode in a leather thong? I can?t even begin to imagine what was left on the editing room floor, but I do know one thing? this does not bode well for Lindsay in the weeks to come. Oh, I know one other thing too ? Brussels sprouts taste like feet!

And before you can say, ?micro penis!? Sean has whisked Lindsay away to a secluded cabin with a moose head over the fireplace. Lindsay explained to Sean that being an Army brat sucks. Sean explained to Lindsay that she?s amazing. They kiss again, and guess who got a rose? Hint: it wasn?t the moose head, though it displayed the most charisma out of the three. And it didn?t even sing.

Goats, canoes, bales of hay and Chris Harrison! We?ve either reached the Group Date or my wildest sex fantasy is about to come true. The group date is usually about a half hour of filler, but this one took the cake. The girls had to compete in some sort of Montana hillbilly death race that began with them rowing canoes, then running with hay, cutting a log in half, and finally drinking milk fresh from the teats of a goat. I once drank milk fresh from the teats of a goat and got kicked out of the petting zoo. But on ABC when you do it, you get to go on a night date.

The losing team was supposed to go home, but ultimately it didn?t matter because Sean decided to bend the rules and invite the losers along for the rest of the date. Needless to say, the winning team was not happy about this. Luckily they were otherwise occupied fishing goat pubes out of their teeth. And how come Sean keeps getting to change the rules week after week? If he keeps this up there won?t be anything for Chris Harrison to do but stand around and be annoying. Luckily, Chris has had about 17 seasons of practice at it, so people don?t really notice anymore. Also, he makes about $500,000 a minute, which means he made a cool million in the time it took me to throw up all the Brussels sprouts. I hate my life.

Now here we are at the Tierra vs. Jackie Two-on-One Smackdown Date. Did any of us really think Jackie even had a shot? Have we heard this girl even speak at all this season? The floor mats in the helicopter had more dialogue. At dinner, Tierra and Sean stepped out to the patio and Tierra gave Sean some sob story about an ex-junkie she used to date. She wept and wept, and gullible Sean tenderly dried her eyes with a hankie, then tucked it neatly back into the dent in Tierra?s forehead.

Meanwhile, Jackie was left inside with no other choice but to cuddle up to the moose head and ask if it wanted to pair up with her for next season?s Amazing Race. Tierra got the rose. Jackie was dumped into the middle of the forest with no cab fare, a can of Deep Woods Off! and instructions on how to cut off her foot in case starvation became an issue.

Needless to say, none of the other women like Tierra and they?re all ready and willing to point out to Sean that he should be ?wary of her.? But when Sean asks them why he should be concerned, none of them care to admit that the only reason they don?t like Tierra is because she?s getting more screen time and manipulating her way to a fast proposal and more covers of In Touch magazine than any of them can count. With nothing more to go on, Sean went ahead and gave Tierra a rose.

Later, Sean had a heart-to-heart with his best bud Chris Harrison, who said he?d noticed a bad vibe and wanted to check in and make sure his pal was okay. Sean revealed he couldn?t understand why none of the other woman like Tierra. Chris continued to back-door audition for his own talk show and probed Sean on his feelings. Sean said that without any supporting evidence, there was no reason to ask for Tierra?s rose back. Chris took a long deep breath and stared at Sean. For a second I thought he was gonna lean in and start massaging one of Sean?s breasts, but instead they did one of those ?bro hand bumps? and parted ways. Come on, guys! It?s Montana. All men there are gay sometimes. There?s only 30 women native to the state, and they all look like that banjo player from Deliverance!

Thank God we?ve arrived at the Rose Ceremony, and I?m counting the hours until we get back to the mansion. Actually, I?m counting the hours until the season premiere of Smash, but The Bachelor won?t let me promote rival networks anymore. Still in the running on tomorrow night?s episode (don?t forget!) are Desiree the Bridal Expert, Selma the Iraqui, Leslie the Political Consultant, AshLee the Personal Organizer, Sarah the girl with one arm, and Catherine the? well I don?t have any idea who the fuck Catherine is, or when she snuck in. I think she?s the woman who shampoos the bearskin rugs at the lodge after the gang checks out.

Poor Robyn was the only one who got shafted at the Rose Ceremony. A few weeks ago she was betting Sean didn?t like black women, and looking at it that way, I guess that makes Robin a big winner! ?Hooray!

Source: http://tvfoodanddrink.com/2013/02/bachelor-sean-lowe-recap-february-4-2013-abc/

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Video: Horses race on ice in Lithuania

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/50696206/

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THE RESET: Gov't slowing economic and job growth

In this Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013 photo, Fernando Rames answers questions on a job application at the job fair in Sunrise, Fla. U.S. employers added 157,000 jobs in January, and hiring was much stronger at the end of 2012 than previously thought, providing reassurance that the job market held steady even as economic growth stalled, according to Labor Department reports, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

In this Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013 photo, Fernando Rames answers questions on a job application at the job fair in Sunrise, Fla. U.S. employers added 157,000 jobs in January, and hiring was much stronger at the end of 2012 than previously thought, providing reassurance that the job market held steady even as economic growth stalled, according to Labor Department reports, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

White House press secretary Jay Carney briefs reporters at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama declared last June that "the private sector is doing fine." And President Ronald Reagan liked to tell audiences, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Two major economic reports this week seem to lend some new weight to both provocative assertions.

The government continued to shed jobs in the first month of 2013, while the private sector again posted solid ? if not robust ? gains, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Employers added 157,000 jobs overall. There would have been more if governments hadn't shed 9,000 jobs in January, extending a recent trend.

The Commerce Department reported two days earlier that the economy contracted in the final three months of 2012, with the Gross Domestic Product slipping at a 0.1 percent annual rate.

A 6.6 percent drop in government spending, most of it at the national level, was the big culprit, subtracting about 1.3 percentage points from the GDP and dragging it into negative territory for the first time in over three years.

Yet the report also showed that the main drivers of the private economy ? housing, consumer spending and business investment ? had strengthened.

Obama was widely ridiculed for saying the private sector was "doing fine" compared to the government, and he backtracked a bit. But it turns out he wasn't totally wrong ? just about six months premature.

And present-day Reagan disciples continue to insist a smaller government is a better government ? even if it stokes job losses.

Reagan also declared, "It's morning in America again."

But that's a sentiment Obama is unlikely to be uttering anytime soon, with the jobless rate inching up in January to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in December.

"We still have work to do," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at Friday's daily briefing.

___

Follow Tom Raum on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tomraum

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-01-US-The-Reset/id-08e7f21d6ca1461b92960d1495ca6621

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Obama: Safety a concern for young football players

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama says the threat of concussions for football players means that everything possible should be done to improve their safety ? especially players from youth football leagues through college.

He said in an interview on CBS during Sunday's Super Bowl pre-game show that he's not as worried about pro football players, because they are adults who know the risks and are well compensated.

Obama, who has two daughters, reiterated his position that, if he had a son, he would have to think about whether he would let him play football.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who also has two daughters, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" earlier Sunday that he would "absolutely" want his own child to play football. He emphasized that the NFL is funding research to learn more about the risks and changing rules to make the game safer.

The president, who says he's a big fan, says the game is likely to evolve and some players and fans may be frustrated. But he's glad there is extensive research under way to learn more about concussions.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-safety-concern-young-football-players-221608783--spt.html

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Eight Things You Didn't Know About Groundhogs

Happy Groundhog Day! Today is the day each year in which we look towards a giant rodent to find out how much more winter we?ll have to endure. This year, we probably know the answer: winter hasn?t been very wintery, even for Los Angeles. Raleigh, on the other hand, is freezing for this LA boy.

According to tradition, the groundhog (Marmota monax) peeks out of its burrow today, and checks to see if it has a shadow. If sunny enough for a shadow, the groundhog will return to the comfort of its burrow, and winter will continue for an additional six weeks.

In honor of the holiday, I?ve rounded up eight things about groundhogs that you probably didn?t know.

1. A groundhog by any other name. Groundhogs are also variously referred to as woodchucks, whistle-pigs, land-beavers, or marmots. The name whistle-pig comes from the fact that, when alarmed, a groundhog will emit a high-pitched whistle as a warning to the rest of his or her colony. The name woodchuck has nothing to do with wood. Or chucking. It is derived from the Algonquian name for the critters, wuchak.

2. Home sweet home. Both male and female groundhogs tend to occupy the same territories year after year. For females, there is very little overlap between home ranges except for the late spring and early summer, as females try to expand their territories. During this time, their ranges may overlap by as much as ten percent. Males have non-overlapping territories as well, though any male territory coincides with one to three mature females? territories.

3. Baby groundhogs! Infants stick around home for only about two to three months after being born in mid-April, and then they disperse and leave mom?s burrow. However, a significant proportion ? thirty five percent ? of females stick around longer, leaving home just after their first birthdays, right before mom?s new litter arrives.

4. Family values. In general, groundhog social groups consist of one adult male and two adult females, each with an offspring from the previous breeding season (usually female), and the current litter of infants. Interactions within a female?s group are generally friendly. But interactions between female groups ? even when those groups are shared by the same adult male ? are rare and aggressive. Even though daddy woodchuck doesn?t live at home, from the breeding season through the first month of the infants? lives, he visits each of his female groups every day.

5. Medical models. Groundhogs happen to be a good animal model for the study of hepatitis B-induced liver cancer. In fact, if infected with Woodchuck Hepatitis B virus, the animal will always go on to develop liver cancer, making them useful for the study both of liver cancer and of hepatitis B.

6. Look up! Though they spend most of their time on or under the ground, groundhogs can also climb trees.

7. Eskimo kisses. Groundhogs greet each other with an odd variation of the eskimo kiss: one groundhog approaches and touches his or her nose to the mouth of the second groundhog. Or, as scientists call it, they make ?naso-oral contact.?

8. Marmots everywhere! There are ? count ?em ? fourteen species of marmot found throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

Meier, P. (1992). Social organization of woodchucks (Marmota monax) Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 31 (6) DOI: 10.1007/BF00170606

Photo: Wikimedia Commons/April King.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=d5a60ed8f11d069301acc10b5949291b

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